Bruce Lee could flow like water and spin nunchucks
like no one else. Thanks to his mind-blowing kicks and lightning-fast
speed, the man became a star in the span of just a few years. But in an unfortunate twist of fate, Bruce
Lee never lived to see his big moment. Here's the truth behind Bruce Lee's tragic
death. Bruce Lee was practically made for the movies. As a kid growing up in Hong Kong, Lee was
a prolific child actor, playing in around 20 films. And when he moved back to his birth country
of the United States, he opened martial arts schools, taught stars including Steve McQueen,
and even donned a black mask and started fighting crime. Playing Kato on The Green Hornet, Lee introduced
kung fu to the American mainstream. Unfortunately, the series only lasted 26 episodes
and failed to launch him into the big time. Frustrated by Hollywood executives passing
him over or giving him bit parts, Lee packed his bags and returned to Hong Kong, where
he discovered he was the most famous man alive. The Green Hornet was so popular in his homeland
that it was known as The Kato Show, and soon Lee was getting leading man parts in Hong
Kong films. Lee's first film as a lead actor was The Big
Boss, which became the highest-grossing movie in Hong Kong history. It held that record until Lee's second film,
Fist of Fury, came along. Soon after, Lee even got a chance to direct,
working on both sides of the camera for Way of the Dragon. After just three films, Lee was suddenly the
king of Asian cinema, and Hollywood finally decided they wanted to be in the Bruce Lee
business. When Bruce Lee started breaking Asian box
office records, Warner Brothers gave him a call. This was Lee's big Hollywood moment — and
Enter the Dragon was what resulted. His first English-language movie, Enter the
Dragon was the perfect film showcase for Lee's philosophy, charisma, and fighting abilities. The plot finds Lee playing a Shaolin warrior
tasked with sailing to an island fortress, joining a martial arts competition, and busting
the drug lord running the show. With on-screen backup from uber-cool Jim Kelly
and a groovy score from Lalo Schifrin, Lee crafted a kung fu flick that is still counted
as one of the best action movies ever made. And when the film hit theaters in August 1973,
it became a box office smash, nabbing $20 million and earning the top spot internationally. Bruce Lee had finally hit the big time — but
by that point, he wasn't around to enjoy his newfound fame. With his bulging biceps and incredible abs,
Bruce Lee was what you might call a "physical specimen." Whether he was skipping rope, circuit training,
or doing isometric exercises, Lee was constantly working on his superhero physique. "As an actor, as a martial artist, as a human being all these I have learned from martial arts." The man seemed absolutely unstoppable, but
despite his amazing build and unbelievable speed, the Little Dragon was actually suffering
from some major health issues. On May 10th 1973, an exhausted Lee was working
on the post-production of Enter the Dragon. He was doing some dubbing in a Hong Kong studio
booth when he suddenly keeled over and began shaking and vomiting. Lee was rushed to the hospital, and it took
him a couple days to regain the ability to speak. After he was feeling better, Lee got an extensive
checkup, but doctors weren't sure what had happened. They knew he'd suffered from a cerebral edema
— which is when fluids build up around the brain, causing it to swell — but they weren't
sure what had caused it. It was a shocking moment for the 32-year-old
Lee, who always looked nigh-on invincible on the big screen. Sadly, it was a harbinger of things to come. Bruce Lee died on July 20th 1973, at just
32 years of age. But how did he spend his last day on Earth? Lee was busy with his upcoming film, Game
of Death, and he was meeting with George Lazenby, hoping to get the James Bond actor on board. After talking with Lazenby, Lee did some hash
with a buddy, and then drove to his mistress Betty Ting Pei's apartment. The two spent the next couple hours in bed
and getting high, only pausing when Lee's producer, Raymond Chow, showed up at the door
— and Lee began eagerly acting out scenes from Game of Death. That's when things took a tragic turn. Lee started feeling dizzy, and his head began
hurting. So Ting Pei offered Lee an Equagesic pill
— a prescription drug that's part painkiller and part tranquilizer — and after taking
it, Lee went into Ting Pei's bedroom to rest. Chow took off, leaving the two alone, and
Ting Pei let her lover sleep for a few hours. Unfortunately, when she finally went to wake
him up, the Dragon was unresponsive. Freaked out, Ting Pei called Chow for help,
but even though a doctor and paramedics rushed to the scene, they were too late. Bruce Lee, the great movie star and martial
artist, had died in his sleep, about a month before Enter the Dragon would hit theaters
and turn him into an international star. Bruce Lee's death sent shockwaves around the
world — but what exactly killed him? After an autopsy at Queen Elizabeth Hospital,
doctors discovered that Lee's brain had swollen by nearly 13%. According to the official report, Lee had
died of, quote, "congestions and edema [eh-DEE-ma] of the brain," the same exact thing that had
hospitalized Lee in May 1973. The edema was originally blamed on the cannabis
in Lee's system. However, that theory was called into question
when Donald Teare showed up. A forensic expert recommended by Scotland
Yard, Teare had earlier performed the autopsy of Jimi Hendrix, so he knew a thing or two
about drug overdoses. And after Teare finished his investigation,
he concluded that Lee had an allergic reaction to the Equagesic pill that Betty Ting Pei
had given him to help with his headache. However, Ting Pei has said this wasn't the
first time she'd given Lee an Equagesic pill, and obviously, the drug didn't kill him on
those occasions. Still, Teare's version of events is widely
accepted. Sadly, however, whenever any major celebrity
dies under strange circumstances, some truly mad conspiracy theories are bound to show
up — and there are still plenty swirling around about Bruce Lee. Raymond Chow made a big mistake after Bruce
Lee's death. Hoping to protect Lee's image, Chow's production
company claimed the actor died at home with his wife, Linda. But once the press found out the truth, the
tabloids got going. In fact, a lot of people pointed the finger
at Betty Ting Pei, claiming she was responsible for Lee's death, with some suggesting she'd
even poisoned him. Unfortunately, that wasn't the only rumor
involving foul play. One of the most popular theories says other
martial artists were angry at Lee for teaching their secrets to Westerners, so they decided
to bump him off. Some imaginative folks say ninjas were responsible,
and others claim Lee was killed with the "Dim Mak," a mythical martial arts move that supposedly
kills a victim in one blow. Some believe he was killed after refusing
to pay protection money to the Triads, while others claim the Mafia did the deed because
Lee wouldn't let them control his career. The more mystical conspiracy theorists even
say there's a family curse that took the life of both Bruce and his son, Brandon Lee. But despite all this wild speculation, Lee
wasn't killed by a mob boss or poisoned by his lover. The master of the one-inch punch was almost
certainly taken out accidentally by a tiny pill. Game of Death could've been the greatest martial
arts movie ever made. Starring Bruce Lee in all his jump-suited
glory, the movie would've followed the head-kicking hero as he battled his way up a pagoda, searching
for a valuable treasure and fighting a new boss at every level. Each bad guy would be the master of a particular
martial art style, and Lee would have to display different tenets of his philosophy Jeet Kune
Do to defeat his foes. Unfortunately, Lee only filmed 40 minutes
of footage for the movie before passing away, so to complete the film, a Bruce Lee double
was hired to play the main character. Worse still, during one scene in which the
double looks into a mirror, the filmmakers taped a cardboard cutout of Lee's face on
the mirror to serve as a reflection. And that's not even counting all the times
the movie cuts to scenes from other Bruce Lee films. The plot was also completely shaken up, with
the hero becoming a movie star whose girlfriend is kidnapped by the mob. Perhaps the worst moment of all, however,
comes when the movie uses footage from Lee's actual funeral — even showing the actor's
corpse. Adding insult to injury, the theatrical version
of Game of Death only uses 11 minutes of Lee's original footage. Fortunately, the 40 minutes Lee shot are still
out there, and at the very least, the film gave us the iconic image of the Little Dragon
trading punches with NBA giant Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Immediately after Lee's death, Hong Kong filmmakers
seized the moment, birthing an entire genre called "Bruceploitation." Hoping to capitalize on Lee's posthumous stardom,
studios hired actors who vaguely resembled the movie star, gave them off-brand names
like Bruce Le with just one "e" and Dragon Lee, and tossed them into knock-off movies
that weren't exactly tasteful. For example, there's Bruce Lee and I, a sleazy
softcore drama about Lee's relationship with Betty Ting Pei, in which Ting Pei plays herself. One of the truly bizarre Bruceploitation flicks
was The Clones of Bruce Lee, where an evil scientist forces three Lee clones to fight
to the death. And in Exit the Dragon, Enter the Tiger, we
learn the so-called "real Bruce Lee" was a reluctant drug mule for the Triads and eventually
murdered, so now, a successor named Bruce Li wants revenge against the gangsters. But without a doubt, the weirdest Bruceploitation
flick was The Dragon Lives Again, where a recently deceased Bruce Lee wakes up in the
afterlife and fights pop culture characters like James Bond and the Man with No Name. Popeye also makes an appearance, while Dracula
later shows up with a gang of mummies. Obviously. Bruce Lee's son, Brandon, was more than a
little reluctant to take up his father's mantle. Brandon was just 8 when his father died, and
for a while he refused to have anything to do with martial arts. Evidently, Brandon found himself dealing with
a lot of anger, and he was kicked out of two high schools before dropping out of a third. "I remember when I was a little kid, a lot of my friends didn't want to come over to the house because there were always these men out in the back yard screaming and breaking things, ya know?" Brandon admits he felt a lot of pressure to
live up to his dad, and at the time, he had no intention of following in his father's
footsteps. As he put it: "I was like, 'Hey! Wait a minute! Where was my vote in this? So I blew it off." His mother, Linda Lee, acknowledged being
Bruce Lee's son wasn't easy. She told The New York Times: "It was a blessing because Bruce was a wonderful
father. But for Brandon, it was also a burden to live
up to what other people expect of you because of who your father is." However, Brandon was eventually bitten by
the acting bug, and thanks partly to his martial arts training from his dad and partly to the
Lee family name, he nabbed his first role in the TV movie, Kung Fu: The Movie. His first feature film was the 1986 Hong Kong
flick Legacy of Rage, and in 1991, he teamed up with Dolph Lundgren for his first American
movie, Showdown in Little Tokyo. Obviously, the movie that made him big was
The Crow, but tragically, Brandon died on set before the film was completed, due to
a mishap with a prop gun. Brandon Lee died on March 31st, 1993 at the
age of 28, passing away right before he was about to become famous, just like his father.
